When she pulled into the drive at Sal’s after the service, Alison found Chris Waters sitting on the steps, fiddling with a twenty-cent piece. He flicked it high in the air and it caught in the sunlight, a glinting, twirling platypus that landed in his hand neatly when it fell. She was instantly annoyed by this. She got out of the car and slammed the door.
“What do you want?”
“Nice to see you too, Alison.”
“What do you want, Chris? I just buried my friend.” Friend. The word was the easiest one, but it wasn’t that simple, was it?
“Anne Arnold told me a story. I was hoping you’d back it up.”
“I didn’t know Simone, not sure how I can help, but I can tell you that Anne Arnold is a trustworthy woman, and I’m sure whatever she tells you is right.”
He sighed. “OK, Alison, I get it. It doesn’t matter anyway; my editor is bored with this story. He wants me to follow up on the kids.”
“The kids?”
“One of the fires was arson. More than one probably, but one for sure. They think it was local kids, mucking around with lighters. They found one of those Zippo lighters—this one had a spade engraved on its side—in the ashes at an ignition site. Cops think it was kids messing.”
“Which ignition site?” Alison felt the hairs on the back of her neck prick up, and a shiver ran down her spine.
“The one up on the highway that pushed the fire down the western ridge toward your place.”
Alison felt sick. “Bloody kids,” she said, trying to look unbothered.
“You all right?” He’d noticed her new skittishness.
“Yeah, to think . . . some kids playing with fire nearly killed me—did kill Simone, and everyone . . .” She trailed off, thinking about the lighter. The way it had looked in Gil’s hand, the way he’d liked to flick it open and closed, open and closed. The lighter had been his father’s. He’d carried it with him in Vietnam, where it had been gifted to him by an American soldier. She closed her eyes and she could see the spade, clear as day, carved into the side of the shiny brass. She pushed past Chris toward the front door. She wanted to be alone.
“Alison?”
“Go away, Chris. I don’t want to talk to you.”
He’d lit the fire. She was sure of it. That was his lighter they’d found. All this misery and pain, all this death—it had been him. She wanted to tear him to shreds. But in the end, maybe he’d learned just how horrible he was. Maybe he too was ash on the wind. She leaned against the wall, slid down it. She heard the screen door open behind her. Chris Waters strode into the hall and sat next to her.
“Alison?”
“It was him.”
“What was who?”
“Gil. Gil started the fire.”
“Alison, I don’t think that’s very—”
“He had a lighter like that. A Zippo with a spade on the side. It was his father’s.”
Chris shook his head. “Those are more common than you think. I already asked around. Just because Gil had one doesn’t mean he set the fire. Why would he? Why would anyone do that on purpose?”
“It was him.”
Chris shrugged. “It isn’t possible to ever prove it, even if you do believe it. Besides, even if this fire was arson, most of them aren’t. Climate change is the real story here. How many more fires like this are we going to see?”
Alison wanted to push back, to force him to pay attention to what she was telling him. But she knew it was futile. And he was right about the fire, about this kind of event’s growing ubiquity. How it started didn’t matter as much as what it did once it had started. She saw now that not one person would ever understand the monstrosity of the man, even if she told them.